India plans to smarten its transmission system

India’s government has approved recommendations to modernise the transmission system as necessary to improve the reliability and affordability of power.

While the full report of the task force chaired by the chairman and managing director of the country’s national transmission utility Powergrid doesn’t appear to have been made publicly available, a statement refers to a “modern and smart power transmission system” with features such as real time monitoring and automation, better situational assessment, enhanced utilisation of the transmission capacity, self-healing capability and greater resilience against both cyber attacks and natural disasters.

The system also should be able to manage an increased share of renewable capacity in the power mix, to meet India’s renewable energy goals.

Underlying this will be centralised and data driven decision-making, the development of predictive maintenance with AI and machine learning and the use of drones and robotics for the construction and inspection of transmission assets.

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“A modern transmission grid is necessary to achieve the government’s vision of 24/7 reliable and affordable power and to meet sustainability goals,” said India’s minister of Power and New & Renewable Energy, R. K. Singh, following the approval.

“A fully automated, digitally controlled, fast responsive grid which is resilient to cyber attacks and natural disasters is the need of the hour.”

The task force, which included representatives from the state transmission utilities, other ministries and research organisations among others, recommended a “bouquet of technological and digital solutions” which can be adopted to make the state transmission grids future ready, according to the statement.

These are broadly grouped under the categories of modernisation of the existing transmission system, the use of advanced technology in construction and supervision and operations and management; a smart and future-ready transmission system and up-skilling of the workforce.

These will start to be implemented and run over the next five years.

With the adoption of the recommendations, the Central Electricity Authority was charged with formulating the necessary standards and regulations for the adoption of the solutions identified – SCADA, FACTS, WAMS, PMUs, etc. – and setting benchmark performance levels for the country’s transmission network.